North Hertfordshire District Council Parking Services Report on Parking
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North Hertfordshire District Council Parking Services Report on Parking Enforcement 2016/17 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Background 3. The Purpose of Civil Parking Enforcement 4. Policy and Priorities 5. Civil Parking Enforcement in North Herts 6. Enforcement Activity – On-street and Car Parks 7. Enforcement Activity – Representations, Appeals and Beyond 8. Financial Aspects of Civil Parking Enforcement 9. Future Plans 10. Availability of Parking Spaces Across North Hertfordshire’s Towns 11. Appendices 12. Glossary of Terms 2 1. Introduction Local authorities engaged in parking enforcement under the Traffic Management Act 2004 are advised to produce an annual report. This Report on Parking Enforcement for 2016/17 focuses on Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued during the stated year, although for obvious reasons a PCN issued in one year may only be resolved in the next. The Secretary of State for Transport’s ‘Statutory Guidance to Local Authorities on the Civil Enforcement of Parking Regulations’ suggests what local authorities’ annual reports might contain. This report includes such items but goes further in terms of explaining the statistics in the context of North Herts Council’s overall policy objectives. Where possible and appropriate, the Council’s performance is benchmarked against previous years’ figures, a national standard or local performance indicator. 2. Background North Herts Council adopted Decriminalised Parking Enforcement (DPE) powers in January 2005. In respect of on-street parking enforcement, North Herts Council acts on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council (the highway authority) under the terms of an agency agreement between the two authorities. As the parking authority North Herts Council is responsible for the management and enforcement of its own off-street car parks. 3. The Purpose of Civil Parking Enforcement Local authorities have had powers to manage and enforce their own off-street car parks for many years; however until recently most on-street parking enforcement was undertaken by police officers or police-employed traffic wardens. In the mid-1990s central government gave local authorities the right to apply for powers to enforce on-street parking restrictions. The adoption of what was then called Decriminalised Parking Enforcement (DPE) but is now termed Civil Parking Enforcement, or CPE, has spread rapidly across the United Kingdom in the following fifteen years. The Secretary of State for Transport has taken reserve powers within the Traffic Management Act 2004 to compel any remaining local authorities to adopt CPE once a critical mass of councils has adopted these powers. There were three main drivers for the so-called “decriminalisation” of parking offences: • Police forces had signalled to central government that they could no longer regard parking enforcement as a priority function given the myriad of other demands upon their limited resources. In many areas traffic wardens had effectively been withdrawn, causing growing parking anarchy on our streets. 3 • It was considered that many parking “offences” would be better dealt with under civil law procedures, which are typically more cost effective and less formal to operate, rather than allow them to clog up the criminal courts. • Local authorities themselves argued that as representatives of their community they were best placed to design and run an enforcement regime that met the priorities of that community. The primary purpose of CPE, as identified in statutory guidance, is to support local authorities in their delivery of their overall transport objectives in areas such as those detailed below. • Managing the traffic network to ensure expeditious movement of traffic, (including pedestrians and cyclists), as required under the TMA Network Management Duty. • Improving road safety. • Improving the local environment. • Improving the quality and accessibility of public transport. • Meeting the needs of people with disabilities, some of whom will be unable to use public transport and depend entirely on the use of a car. • Managing and reconciling the competing demands for kerb space. Central government is also clear in explaining what CPE is not about. In particular, government emphasises that CPE is not to be regarded as a revenue raising exercise. Whilst Government accepts that local authorities will seek to make their CPE operations as close as possible to self-financing as soon as possible, it advises that any shortfall must be met from within existing budgets rather than falling on the local or national taxpayer. The traffic management objectives of CPE are achieved primarily through encouraging compliance with parking restrictions – and it is with this objective in mind that North Herts Council enforces parking both on and off-street throughout the district. 4. Policy and Priorities North Hertfordshire District Council’s overarching visions is to Make North Hertfordshire a vibrant place to live, work and prosper. The Mission statement for the Council state ‘To work collaboratively with our partners and communities to deliver the vision for the district of North Hertfordshire’. The Council’s mission and vision is supported by the following strategic Priorities: Promoting sustainable growth Working with our communities Living within our means 4 The increasing intrusion of the motor vehicle into the life of our community can have a detrimental effect on our town centres – whether through the effects of congestion, pollution or inconsiderate and dangerous parking. The place of motor vehicles needs to be properly managed to ensure these adverse effects are minimised. Effective enforcement of our streets, leading in turn to improved compliance with parking restrictions, helps reduce risks to pedestrians and other road users and promotes the free and safe flow of traffic, thus reducing congestion and the economic and environmental damage this causes. It is also important to note that town centres rely on a turnover of short stay parking spaces to help them operate and prosper so parking enforcement plays a key role in making this happen. Long stay parking is also offered and carefully managed to cater for town centre businesses. 5. Civil Parking Enforcement in North Herts CPE in North Herts is undertaken by a team of eleven Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) and a Parking Team Leader spread across the district and is actively managed by Parking Enforcement Manager in accordance with North Hertfordshire District Council’s Parking Strategy. North Herts Council does not clamp or remove vehicles. Clamping is no longer favoured as an enforcement tool, as it often results in a “problem” vehicle being made to remain at an inappropriate location for longer than is necessary. The cost of setting up and running a removal operation, including a vehicle pound for the purpose of storing vehicles would be disproportionate to the benefit it might create for a smaller, rural district council such as North Herts. 6. Enforcement Activity – On street and in Car Parks The number of PCNs issued since North Herts Council adopted CPE is detailed below: Year Total PCNs 2005/06 12801 2006/07 14494 2007/08 12775 2008/09 11895 2009/10 12181 2010/11 9952 2011/12 9673 2012/13 9071 2013/14 14215 2014/15 13642 2015/16 12150 2016/17 13753 The proportion of PCNs issued on and off-street is of interest to North Herts Council and its residents. The primary purposes of CPE are to ensure 5 compliance with parking controls and to improve road safety; therefore enforcement of car parks, where road safety considerations are slight, must always be secondary to enforcement of restrictions on the highway, which have more evident safety connotations. That said, many of our towns rely on visitors to local shops and restaurants and enforcement of car parks is therefore important, both to ensure a regular turnover of vehicles and that car park users correctly pay and display. By definition, car parks are densely packed with vehicles; therefore the potential for contravention is greater than on the highway. As a result, there will always be more PCNs issued per patrolling hour in car parks than on street. This can give rise to the erroneous perception that CEOs concentrate on car park enforcement to the detriment of enforcement on the highway. It must be noted that North Herts CEO patrol its on and off-street enforcement areas equally. The proportion of on and off-street PCNs issued in previous years is given in the table below. Year On -Street PCNs Off -Street PCNs 2005/06 59% 41% 2006/07 50% 50% 2007/08 48% 52% 2008/09 44% 56% 2009/10 40% 60% 2010/11 45% 55% 2011/12 45% 55% 2012/13 52% 48% 2013/14 61% 39% 2014/15 55% 45% 2015/16 54% 46% 2016/17 57% 43% The number of PCNs issued in 2016/17 for the main on-street and off-street parking contraventions are detailed in Appendix A . With effect from 2008/09, Government introduced differentiated penalty charges, whereby some parking contraventions attract a higher level penalty charge according to their perceived seriousness. These are typically on-street contraventions. Details of parking contraventions enforced in North Herts during 2016/17 and their associated penalty charge are detailed in Appendix B . The number of higher level and lower level PCNs issued by North Herts Council * is given below. Year Higher Level PCNs (£70) Lower Level PCNs (£50) 2008/09 4592 7303 2009/10 4105 8076 2010/11 3299 6653 2011/12 3140 6533 2012/13 3615 5456 2013/14 6249 7966 6 2014/15 5371 8271 2015/16 4944 7206 2016/17 5658 8095 *Comparisons with previous years are not possible as differential charging only commenced in 2008/09 North Herts Council will continue to develop its parking enforcement service in ways that meet statutory requirements and the enforcement and other strategic objectives of the authority whilst recognising that flexibility is needed to respond to an environment that can change on an almost day to day basis.